GULFÁ (ISPAHÁN). - A city of an Armenian colony in the Persian Empire.
When in 1605 the Persian shah 'Abbás conquered Greater Armenia, he deported several thousand Armenian families to Persia as a productive and civilized element. They founded there a city called New G., which soon developed industrially and culturally. In the 17th century Western religious orders opened their missions there: in 1625 the Carmelites, then the Capuchins, the Jesuits, and the Dominicans. In 1722 Shah Nádir persecuted Christians, many of whom emigrated from G. to Russia and the West. In 1828 the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide sent to G. the Armenian missionary G. Derderian, who in 1834 obtained from the shah a decree of protection for the Armenian Catholic community. The Lazarists took charge of the Armenians, and Pius IX in 1850 established in G. the episcopal see dependent on the primatial see of Constantinople.